Bored with Soup

Help! I'm bored. I have a small deli/market in North East Texas. We have a busy lunch business and soup is very popular. I need to expand the soup menu but have a problem with the customers embracing products that are too far out of the norm for this area of the country. Any suggestions for new menu options? I would like to retire some of the heavy cream based soups we've been making for new, lighter, healthier, tastier, more profitable ones.

We currently rotate the following soups:

Chicken Tortilla

Mexican Corn Chowder

Baked Potato

Cheesy Broccoli

Cream of Wild Mushroom

Italian Chicken Tortellini

Texas Taco

Classic French Onion

Sausage and Chicken Gumbo

Chicken & Dumplins

Vegetable Beef

Spicy Black Eyed Pea

Cream of Poblano (most recently added and seems to be well received)

Butternut Squash Bisque (this one I want to add for the remainder of the winter and see how it goes.)

I'm guessing by NE Texas, you aren't referring to the DFW metroplex. If you are talking about that area, then disregard my ramblings.

Aside from DFW, NE Texas is small towns, slow moving populations, and generally "the country". I've found that while there are some folks that will be receptive to new foods, most people are interested in the "comfort foods" that they're familiar with. It's strangely interesting that country folks will also eat things that most of the big city folks won't widely accept either.

I work at a small cafe in a small central Texas town and soups are pretty popular here too. I have tried some different ones and they don't fly so much here.

One of our most popular soups is Roasted Red Pepper soup that we put a little shredded Marieke Gouda on top of. let me know if you want the recipe.

I have also done a creamy spinach soup that we served with shredded Gruyere on top of. It wasn't too well received. (Everyone wrinkled their nose and said "Spinach?!?!") But it was very good. My husband liked it and he does not like ANYTHING remotely green. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif my cowboy likes meat and potatoes.

French Onion is another popular one, I try to do this one when the weather is particularly rainy and cold.

I also do a Tomato bisque that I serve with a dollop of basil pesto on top and fresh made croutons.

Also a Carbonnade that I season with herbs de provence and serve with a slice of toasted baguette with a little dijon mustard on it for dipping.

We also do a taco soup that is topped with veldhuizen jalapeno cheese. It is popular with the "guy crowd" Plus the cheese comes from a local Texas farm.

I did yesterday a cheese soup using Tintern cheese. It was eye rolling-ly good.

Usually, when I am at a loss for new ideas, the first thing I do is look at what I am already doing and see how I can "rift" on some of those ideas. So using some of your soups as starting points:

Baked potato

-Garlic Potato with Crispy Croutons

-Potato Bacon

-Chilled Potato Cucumber (maybe with smoked salmon)

-Spicy Sweet Potato

-a creamy root vegetable soup (with parnsips or turnips or rutabagas in with the potato)

Classic French Onion

-Creamy Onion

-Blue Cheese Onion

-Autumn Onion (with cider and sliced apples)

Beef Vegetable

-Beef Barley

-Minestrone

Tomato Soup

-Classic Cream of Tomato Soup

-Grilled Tomato Soup

-Smoked Tomato Soup

-Hearty Italian Tomato Soup

Corn Chowder

-Sweet Potato and Smoked Turkey Chowder

Spicy Blackeyed Pea

-Blackeyed Pea with Ham and Collards

-Split Pea with Ham

-Spicy Sausage and Lentil

Often it doesn't take much to completely change a soups character. Use the same exact soup that you use for your Chicken and Dumpling and replace the dumplings with any short pasta and stir in some pesto and you have "Italian Chicken" or "Basil Chicken." Again take the same exact base and add some cream and replace the dumplings with cooked wild rice. Even just changing the garnish can take a soup in a completely new direction. Take the Butternut Squash Bisque, garnish it with sauteed apples and a dusting of sweet spices (cinnamon, ginger, etc), then garnish it with a julienne of candied anchos, then garnish it with some fresh cilantro and a drizzle of harissa sauce. Each way takes the soup in an entirely new direction.

True about wanting to veer away from cream based soups but sometimes it's easy to get stuck in a rut. Thanks for all the great ideas - I will be checking the recipe section and as soon as I get a chance I will post mine for y'all.

True about wanting to veer away from cream based soups but sometimes it's easy to get stuck in a rut. Thanks for all the great ideas - I will be checking the recipe section and as soon as I get a chance I will post mine for y'all.

Have a great New Year!

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I have been trying to get away from cream based soups as well. At one time it seemed like every soup on our rotation had cream in it. I was very happy when I was able to get the "New England Clam Chowder" off our menu. I HATED making that one. Now we just have the cheese soup that is cream based.

I'd say have less but more quality soups for your clients. I am of european descent. where I am from soups are very popular and are prepared with utmost passion and dedication. in usa soups are not so popular and in many places they are either to creamy or prepared on some quick-style basis from a powder mix of some sort. if you can make a normal soup home made soup well and have couple of them on the menu there wouldn't be a need for such big variety all the time and people would eat it, because it tastes good and have lots of nutrients in it. I am single now, but I do cook a big pot of soup every other week it doesnt take that long and I have big quantity.

I'd say have less but more quality soups for your clients. I am of european descent. where I am from soups are very popular and are prepared with utmost passion and dedication. in usa soups are not so popular and in many places they are either to creamy or prepared on some quick-style basis from a powder mix of some sort. if you can make a normal soup home made soup well and have couple of them on the menu there wouldn't be a need for such big variety all the time and people would eat it, because it tastes good and have lots of nutrients in it. I am single now, but I do cook a big pot of soup every other week it doesnt take that long and I have big quantity.

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I wouldn't say that soups are not popular in the US. Soups are very popular in the restaurant where I work. On cold days we usually sell out. I make all my soups from scratch, no powders or mixes. I even make my own chicken stock every day. I take pride in my soups, and we use the best ingredients possible. Sometimes it is better to use canned or frozen veggies since we cannot get the best quality veggies all year long (not local anyway). We don't do soups really in the summer because it can get so un-godly hot in Texas over the summers, and no one wants a bowl of steaming french onion soup when it is 100+ degrees outside. Well Texans don't anyway. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/wink.gif